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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Chap. .__J2£T; -2*2-5 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN SHAW. 



AN OUTLINE. 



u O, what hadst thou to do with cruel Death, 
Who wast so full of life, or Death with thee, 
That thou shouldst die before thou hadst grown old? 



BY HIS SON, 

RALPH H. SHAW. 



Read before the Old Residents' Historical Association, 
November 18, 1892. 



LOWELL, MASS. 
LOWELL COURIER PUBLISHING CO. 

1893. 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN SHAW. 



AN OUT LINK. 



BY HIS SON, 



RALPH H. SHAW 



fi 



Read before the Old Residents'' Historical Association, 
November 18, 1892. 




LOWELL, MASS. 

LOWELL COURIER PUBLISHING CO. 

1S93. 



Jjf 






Benjamin Franklin Shaw ; an Outline. By Ralph H. 
Shaw. Read November 18, 1892. 



[Copyrighted, 1892.] 



Benjamin Franklin Shaw, my father, was born at 
Monmouth, Maine, on the twenty-second of November, 
1832. His ancestors, at the remotest period reached by 
his genealogy, were Scotch, and he was a lineal descendant 
of Roger Shaw, who settled at Hampton, New Hampshire, 
in 1647, and wiio was several times the Hampton Deputy. 
I remember how my father laughed when he told me that 
this ancestor, as the Hampton Vintner or Keeper of the 
Ordinary, was authorized to sell intoxicating liquors to 
Christians, but not to Indians, except when, according to 
his judgment, it should ''seem meet and necessary for 
their relief in just and urgent occasions." 

His sentiments in regard to this ancestor, and to his 
ancestors in general, were very well expressed in the 
following letter, written in 1882: 

My Benefactor — It was a kind act of yours, and one grace- 
fully done, to spend so many hours in making me acquainted with 
the names and places of abode of my ancestors. The oblivion of a 
dim past — and I have often supposed it might be the charity of 
oblivion — had, until you undertook to peer into it, quite concealed 
from me whatever evidence of their existence the generations of 
Shaws anterior to that of Joseph, whose will was executed in 1743, 
left behind. I can hardly express the pleasure your clearing the 
obscurity gives me. 



BENJAMIN FRANKLTN SHAW ; 



Though each of my predecessors was as humble in station as 
I am, it is agreeable to one who somewhat loves and venerates 
ancestry to have so simple a fact as that definitely fixed, for we 
could hardly feel a certainty of that were not the chain viewed as 
so many links — each having individuality, or that degree of pecu- 
liarity a fond imagination draws from the names, dates, offspring, 
etc., etc., and throws around the figures of his people gone before, 
which makes so interesting the contemplation of them. 

To the name "Roger" — a name which to me indicates a 
genial austerity — you have added the record of his connection with 
wine, Indians, and spirits, and the implied fact that he, perhaps 
alone of his fellowmen, could be trusted to sell rum. What moral 
integrity, purity, holiness was that in him which sanctified him to 
that high office ! He was a man, doubtless, who would not put to 
his neighbor's lips a cup his own should not taste ; and, if there was 
only one cup, he was, we may feel assured, a man who would see 
that his neighbor partook only sparingly of it. 

Whether my father was proud of his connection with 
Roger Shaw, or not, he must have regarded with some 
satisfaction the fact that among his ancestors, though 
remotely, Avere natives of Scotland. It pleased him once 
to say that "Watt, a Scotchman, made useful the steam 
engine, and that is enough for one country to be proud 
of. Still, in metaphysics, history, and works of imagina- 
tion and poetry, Scotland has produced eminent men." 

At the time of my father's birth, and for years after, 
his father, Moses Shaw, a skilful mechanic, carpenter, and 
builder, was in poor circumstances, owing to the dulness 
of the times; and the house in which my father was 
born was a very rude one — not so good as the typical 
New England farm-house of its day. He told me that on 
many a stormy night in winter the snow blew through the 
crevices in its walls and fell on his bed. Monmouth, 
during his boyhood, was a woodsy, lonesome town, and its 
houses were "few and far between." Whatever may have 



AN OUTLINE. 3 



been its charms in summer, it was dreary enough in 
winter, and I shall never forget the picture he presented 
to my mind when he told me that here, as a little boy, he 
would sometimes lie awake at night to hear the barking 
of wolves in the distance and the ticking of the old- 
fashioned clock in his room. "How comforting," he 
added, "was the ticking of that clock! It assured me 
that I was safe at home."* 

In 1841 he went with his parents to live at Topsham, 
Maine. Though the years were few that he passed at 
Monmouth after he had become old enough to receive 
impressions or to be affected by his surroundings, he often 
thought of the picturesque old town, and delighted to 
describe it. In a letter written in the last year of his life, 
in acknowledgment of an editorial notice, he said, " I am 
glad you mentioned my birthplace, Monmouth. Towns 
have turned out sons of infinitely greater ability to make 
names for themselves; but no birthplace ever inspired 
greater love than that I bear for the old farm in Mon- 
mouth, near the head of Winthrop Pond." 

Soon after his folks had settled in Topsham, a quiet 
old town on the Androscoggin, he began to realize that 
life imposes burdens and makes demands that must be 
met. He was obliged to work whenever there was work 
that he could do, even if it interfered with his attendance 
at school. When he was ten years of age he was sent to 
Bowdoinham to do light work on a farm. He went in 
seed-time and remained until harvest, receiving for his 
services, in addition to his board, the stupendous sum of 
nine dollars. He had worked about four and a half 



* When he was eight or nine years of age he built a little up-and-down saw- mill on the 
side of a brook that ran through a pasture in this town. He dammed the brook for power.; 
had a tin saw about six inches long, and borrowed long red potatoes for " logs," and sawed 
hem into " boards." 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN SHAW ; 



months for it ! When he was twelve years of age he was 
employed during the winter in a match factory on Shad 
Island, receiving matches in the spring in return for his 
w r ork ! But matches were looked upon as a luxury then, 
and those received by him, if they were not sold, must 
have been very economically used by his parents. He 
managed, however, to attend the district school at Tops- 
ham during its winter sessions, with few interruptions, 
until he was fifteen years of age, when he was sent to 
Saco, Maine, to earn what he could as a clerk for a dealer 
in dry goods. Here he remained two years, returning to 
Topsham in 1849. This dealer, who came to Lowell to 
see him some years before he died, told me that he made 
a very successful clerk, and that his intelligence and 
gentlemanly manners were remarked by everybody that 
met him. 

On returning to Topsham he assisted his father dur- 
ing one summer at house-building, and learned enough of 
carpentry in one way and another to be able to say that 
he had nearly mastered a trade.* But he found he was 
not rugged enough to be a carpenter, and, wanting to ; * get 
knowledge, get understanding, " and living almost in the 
shadow of Topsham Academy, he wished he could attend 
that institution, but the circumstances of his parents were 
such he did not see how he could. He comforted him- 
self a while with the thought that a person can teach 
himself something, and had a room in his father s house 
set apart for a study, and borrowed books from a neigh- 
bor. In this room he pored over these books night after 
night, adding much to the store of his knowledge ; but it 
was natural that the more he learned the more he wanted 



* At this time, when the work of the day was done, he employed the moments at his 
disposal in constructing a suction hose fire-engine (small seals), showing much ingenuity. 



AN OTTTLINE. ^ 



to learn, and he looked again with longing eyes at Tops- 
ham Academy — and not in vain : he was told, by some 
one having influence at the academy, that he might have 
tuition there during the winter, free of cost, if he would 
ring the bell, build the fires, and sweep the floors. He at 
once promised to do this work, not caring for the humilia- 
tion which his sensitive nature would be sure to feel. 
He rang the bell, built the fires, and swept the floors, and 
may have been looked upon as a menial by some of the 
other pupils. No matter! — though he rang the bell, 
built the fires, and swept the floors, he stood at the head 
of his class, and his teachers told his parents, time and 
again, that they "had never caught him with a poor lesson, 
though they had never found him studying very hard. " 
He was quick to comprehend, and his memory was good. 
At the end of the term he had learned all there was to be 
learned at the academy ; but he was not satisfied, and 
expressed a desire to go to college, especially to BoAvdoin 
College, which was not far away. 

His uncommon intelligence and capacity for learn- 
ing had so favorably impressed his neighbor, Rev. Dr. 
Wheeler — who had lent him books and given him access 
to an excellent library — that this scholarly gentleman, on 
hearing of his desire to go to college, told his parents 
that he would bear the expense of his tuition if they 
would let him go. But his parents felt compelled to say 
that their family was a large one, and that he must con- 
tribute what he could to its support. He knew that he 
could do very little, if anything, in this direction, if at 
college, and, sorrowfully giving up the hope of receiving 
a polite education, went to work for a bookseller in 
Brunswick, Maine, in whose employ he remained until late 
in 1850, when fortune favored him a little, and he was 
engaged to keep the books of a prosperous dealer in lum- 



6 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN SHAW J 



ber at Gardiner, Maine, whither he went with a light heart, 
wearing the first full suit of good clothes that he ever 
had. He w r as now eighteen years of age. 



" TOILING UPWARD IN THE NIGHT. 

I know very little about my father's life at Gardiner, 
but he worked diligently, and gave a portion of his earn- 
ings to his parents. He was married here, January 20, 
1853, to Harriet Nowell Howard, who Avas born at Haver- 
hill, Massachusetts, and whom he had met in Topsham in 
1852 and earlier. He had given so much satisfaction to his 
employers here that late in 1853, when he was twenty-one 
years of age, they sent him to act as their agent in a sash 
and blind business at Philadelphia. Either this sash and 
blind business did not pay well, or he wearied of it, for in 
the fall of 1854 he quitted it as its creditor, and w r as in the 
City of Brotherly Love with nothing to do, and almost a 
stranger. But it was not long before he found employ- 
ment and entered the office of the publishers, Lippincott, 
Grambo & Co., now the J. B. Lippincott Co., beginning 
his work here as an under-clerk, but showing so much 
ability that he was soon promoted, and in a few years 
given general charge of all the clerical work and paid a 
handsome salary. 

In 1859, when he was twenty-seven years of age, he 
built a beautiful villa in Fisher's Lane, Germantown. now 
part of Philadelphia, employing his father and younger 
brothers to do the work. There w r ere now T prosperous 
days; but "the haunting dream of better" would not 
suffer him to be content. He did not want to do clerical 
work all his life ; but w r hat he should do to get away 
from " the desk" and better his circumstances he did not 
know. He had invented a number of useful things, 



AN OUTLINE. 



including an inkstand, which I am now using, a penholder, 
and, I am told, a letter-press ; but he had been too busy 
in the discharge of his duties at the office to turn any of 
these devices to account. What should he do ? It was 
hard to say ; but casting about, as it were, he found there 
was need of improvement in the text-books used for pri- 
mary instruction in geography, and he believed that he 
could supply it, though he knew he could do nothing to 
this end during the day-time. He went to work, burned 
his taper, and in 1862 issued his Primary Geography on 
the basis of the object method of instruction ; illustrateu 
with numerous engravings and pictorial maps. This 
excellent work was highly commented upon by eminent 
educators, and introduced into many of the schools in 
Pennsylvania and western states. The testimonial of Epes 
Sargent, one of many equally good, presents the merits of 
this work so much better than could any words of mine 
that I will insert it here : 

The author evinces in his novel work a familiarity with the 
best modes of instruction, practical knowledge of the art of teach- 
ing, and correct judgment as to the best means by which the pupil's 
reasoning powers may be developed. 

The book captivates by its illustrations and pictorial maps, 
and satisfies by its easy, logical arrangement, appropriate subject- 
matter, and the broad scope it gives to thought. Not confining the 
attention to dry details in technical terms, it interests, instructs, and 
stimulates by the pleasing and important information by which it is 
diversified. 

The idea of indicating climatic conditions, and of showing 
the mutual adaptation of things to places by means of pictoria 
illustrations and textual descriptions, is too good to be passed with- 
out remark ; while the excellence of the plan is so obvious that 
mention seems to be almost superfluous. 

He was not publicly known as the author of this 
work. It bore the name of Fordyce A. Allen, principal 



8 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN SHAW ; 

of the Chester County Normal School, West Chester. 
Pennsylvania. The reason will be obvious, doubtless. The 
author, who could boast of no higher Alma Mater, if he 
ever regarded it as such, than the academy at Topsham, 
and who was very nearly self-taught, had not gained a 
reputation in any department of educational work. On 
the other hand, the gentleman whose name was used was 
widely known as a person of " accurate scholarship,*' who 
had been for fifteen years an educator, and had been con- 
nected with county institutes in every section of Pennsyl- 
vania, as well as in other states. 

Encouraged by the reception that this work met 
with, its author began the compilation of his Comprehen- 
sive Geography, combining mathematical, physical, and 
political geography, with important historical facts ; 
designed to promote the normal growth of the intellect. 
This important work, characterized as ;; original and pro- 
gressive," was published in 1864, when he was only thirty- 
two years of age, and was as well received by educators as 
the Primary Geography had been, and as widely intro- 
duced. One of its most pleasing, peculiar features was the 
exhibition in its physical maps of the marked elevations 
and depressions in the surface of the earth, by means of 
nice gradations of light and shade. 

I shall not undertake to describe this accurate and 
thorough work ; but to give some idea of its comprehen- 
siveness, and the labor involved in its compilation. I will 
present a portion of its preface : 

The Primary Geography, the first book of the series, begins 
with the pupil himself, and invites his attention to such works of 
nature and art as may be seen around his home. Gradually extend- 
ing the view, it places before him, part after part, our own country, 
then, one by one, other lands, until he obtains a glimpse of the 
whole earth. 



AN OUTLINE. 9 



This work, the second of the series, considers in its entirety 
the earth thus put together ; afterwards the several natural and 
political divisions of its surface. 

Thus the scholar ascends from the study of the several parts to 
the contemplation of the whole. Then, separating the mass, he 
examines closely each of its divisions. 

Although the general plan of the book is analytic and com- 
parative, the subjects are, for the most part, treated inductively ; 
since it is not expected that the learner will comprehend effects until 
their causes have been made known to him. 

The combination of natural and civil history with the com- 
monly recognized branches of geograplry has afforded an opportunity 
to bring out in an unobtrusive manner many of the important 
principles and minor facts pertaining to the subject. 

The early animals whose remains in museums are objects of 
curiosity ; the vegetation to which we trace the coal formations ; the 
later plants and the higher animals, including man ; the great 
empires of antiquity ; the theories of the ancients concerning the 
earth ; the results of modern investigations ; the political divisions 
of the present day ; — these are spoken of in their natural order. 

This chronological arrangement facilitates the elucidation of 
the mathematical part of the study. It enables the pupil to see the 
earth as the ancients saw it ; to change his ideas as mankind 
changed theirs ; and to regard the terrestrial mass as men regard it 
now. Instead of exhibiting the globe at the outset, it assists the 
reasoning powers in slowly forming into a round body the appar- 
ently flat expanse of land and water. 

This was a great work ; was it not a remarkably 
great work considered with respect to the age, the limited 
schooling, and early circumstances of its author ? It was 
compiled, as the Primary Geography had been, at night, 
and for nearly three years kept its author from his bed 
until two or three o'clock in the morning and nearly made 
a recluse of him, for it prevented his participation in any 
social event or pleasure. It was put forth as the work of 
Benjamin F. Shaw and Fordyce A. Allen. Professor 
Allen did nothing in its production further than to make 



10 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN SHAW; 

some suggestions as to what its general arrangement 
would better be. This statement is confirmed by a letter 
from Professor Allen to my father dated November 6, 
1864. In this letter, following the averment that 
" whenever and wherever opportunity has presented itself, 
I have always spoken of the work as being chiefly your 
own and the result of your own labors," occur these 
interesting words : 

You are struggling to get a reputation in the literary and edu- 
cational field with the odds seemingly against you. Your position 
has been such that it was hard to make the start. But }*ou are 
standing upon a solid basis, upon a foundation laid by yourself, 
every stone of which you have quarried, hewed, and laid with your 
own hands. In short, you are coming into the field with real merit. 

" INTO EACH LIFE SOME RAIN MUST FALL. " 

Early in 1865, finding that protracted night work 
had so impaired his health as to make it imperative that 
he should have more out-door air and exercise, and having 
conceived the idea of cattle-raising in the far West, he 
resigned his lucrative position at the counting-house to 
engage in this business, and. in company with a New 
Hampshire school-master, whom he had known for years, 
purchased government claims in Kansas. Whereupon he 
sold his home in Fisher's Lane, and moved his family to 
South Danvers, Massachusetts, having bought the Captain 
Lowe estate in that town, locally well-known, and at that 
time possessing many attractions. 

Here he left his wife and little ones and departed 
with the school-master for Salina, then a frontier hamlet, 
to enter a business for which he had. it seems to me. no 
natural qualifications. For a while the business pro- 
ceeded smoothlv and encouraoin^lv ; but it was not lon^ 



AN OUTLINE. 11 



before he found that the school-master was unscrupulous — 
that he not only pretended to forget the promises he had 
made, but appropriated to himself funds belonging to the 
company ; the atmosphere of Kansas, the presence of 
savages and more savage outlaws, the sight of tomahawks 
and bowie knives, and, for all I know, the use thereof, 
seem to have demoralized him. The discovery of this 
moral crookedness on the part of the school-master, 
together with the loss of hay burned by Indians and of 
cattle dying from the cold of an uncommonly severe 
winter, put an end to the business of cattle-raising, and 
early in 1866 my father returned to the bosom of his 
family, barely escaping the wilds of the West with his 
life, not so well off in purse, but very much better off in 
health. 

Directly after his return he accepted the position of 
general manager of the outside operations and invest- 
ments of Dr. J. C. Aver & Co., Lowell, Massachusetts, 
which he held until the summer of 1868, continuing to 
reside at South Danvers. To most men the discharge of 
the duties of this important position would have been 
work enough; but, in addition to it, he invented a seam- 
less stocking and an automatic loom for its production, 
wdiich involved a radical departure from any method of 
making stockings that had been known, and which, as 
perfected by him some years later, raised him to the dis- 
tinction he enjoyed as an inventor. They were suggested 
to him in the autumn of 1865. "I was then," he once 
said, "away down on the soutlrwest borders of Arkansas 
and Missouri. One night while driving cattle I was 
pursued by rebel bushwhackers and forced to swim the 
Osage River. I escaped my pursuers. While drying my 
clothes by the cabin fire I noticed for the first time the 
remarkable similarity between the heel and toe of a 



12 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN SHAW ; 

stocking. It gave me the idea that both might be made 
in the same way. This was the seed-thought which later 
led to the invention of the knitting-machine." 

Though this stocking, which was patented to him 
April 23, 1867, was destined to be made, in the course 
of some years, by many manufacturers, to be widely 
marketed, and to become known commercially as "the 
seamless stocking," it did not satisfy him, mainly because 
its heel did not fit perfectly, and, fearing it would not be 
salable, he laid it aside with the loom, which was the 
first circular knitting-machine capable in itself of pro- 
ducing a stocking without seams, having a rounded heel 
and toe. 

Though he laid these inventions aside he did not 
abandon them. He knew how important they were, and 
looked hopefully forward to their development, to which 
he would have applied himself at once had he not 
exhausted his means. His western venture had cost him 
much; he had sold the rights in his geographies, mort- 
gaged his home, and used the proceeds ; and was a poor 
man. 

On resigning "the position of manager for Dr. J. C. 
Ayer & Co., he entered upon the most unsatisfactory 
period of his life, during which he sold his beautiful 
home in South Dan vers at auction, and moved to Cam- 
bridge, Massachusetts, and. after a .number of reverses, 
became nearly discouraged. 

This period of nearly eight years, though so unsatis- 
factory, was not barren, but was productive of much that 
was highly creditable. He seldom referred to it ; yet I 
sometimes think that during this period he best showed 
his uncommon attainments and extraordinary versatility, 
so many and so various were the kinds of work he did. 
He invented processes for making glue, gelatine, and 



AN OUTLINE. 13 



super-phosphate, two of which were successfully used by 
concerns with which he was connected; invented a pro- 
cess and apparatus for destroying the offensive gases of 
rendering establishments, which were used in factories at 
East Cambridge with the most gratifying results ; and did 
some literary work, a portion of which was commercial. 

He had literary talent in an artistic degree, and the 
stories, essays, sketches, and poems of his that have been 
preserved incline me to regret that his circumstances and 
duties were such he could not give more time to its 
cultivation. His humorous story of " Joab Quint," a 
poor simpleton, makes every reader laugh till his sides 
ache. His essay upon the " Slaughtering of Domestic 
Animals" was awarded the prize at the New England 
Agricultural Fair, at Lowell, in 1872, by the Massachu- 
setts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. 
His open letters to the press were always ably written, 
-and his private as well as his business letters were 
frequently models of style. 

I may be excused for including in these pages a few 
of his poems, though he shrank from the mention of 
them with deprecation, they were so far below his ideal. 



FAKE WELL TO SUMMER. 



The leaves are falling-, one by one; 
The fruits are mellowing in the sun ; 
The birds are singing sadder lays; — 
Farewell, farewell, bright summer days. 

Our hopes are failing, one by one ; 
Our works are telling what we've done ; 
The castle grand is vapor gray ; — 
Farewell, farewell, bright summer's day. 



14 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN SHAW ; 



HARVEST HOME. 



When the woods are aflame with brilliant hues, 
And the sun with a golden glow imbues 
Whatever looms on the tremulous air; — 

When the dusty quakers drowsily fly 
As the ponderous team moves slowly by, 
And the gossamer floats in the ether rare ; — 

When the apples are ripening in the sheen, 
And the mellowing pumpkins shine between 
The withering rows that leave them bare; — 

It is then sleepy nature simulates rest; 

And the farmer, with harvests plentifully blest, 

The repose autumnal would dreamily share. 

But to man was not given an annual rest; 
Unceasing activity was God's wise behest 
To the lord of all in the earth and the air. 

There are manifold duties beyond cropping the soil,- 

In disposing the gains of requited toil, — 

In benevolence to all assigned to our care ; — 

In improving the mind, in refining the sense, 

In learning to gratefully recompense 

The Giver of Everything Good and Fair; — 

In preserving the germs for another year, — 

In preparing ourselves for the heavenly sphere — 

For the Harvest Home that awaits us there. 



GROWING DARK. 



'Tis growing dark, dear mother. 
The room is very still; 

I now see angels, mother, 
Coming down the hill. 

They reach for me. dear mother. 

To take me in the air; 
If you could go, too. mother, 

I'd be so happy there. 



AN OUTLINE. 



15 



And you will come, dear mother, 
And bring my brother dear, 

And father, too, dear mother ; 
You must not leave them here. 

I'm going, going, mother, 
One kiss, one kiss for me. 

The angels lift me, mother, 
I see, — I see, — I see — 



OBACHICKQUID. 



(It is an historical fact that the squaw of Obachickquid was 
carried off by Uncas, sachem of the Mohegans. Upon that inci- 
dent the following verses are founded. Hobbamocko was the 
Indian name of the principal evil spirit. Kitchtan was God.) 



When the night-winds 
With the shadows 
Filled the woodpaths, 
From his hunting 
Came all foot-tired 
To his wigwam, 
Obachickquid. 

"Lulu!" called he: 
Came no answer. 
** Lulu! " cried he : 
Came no answer. 
u Lulu! hear me, 
Obachickquid! " 
Came no answer. 

Dying fire was ; 
Cold the pot hung; 
Gone the wolf-robe 
From the bed-place; 
Gone the necklace, 
Gone the moccasins : 
Left was silence. 

Half the moon shone, 
Darkened hills half: 
Cold the dew fell ; 
Far the wolf howled. 



By his doorway, 
Glooming, grieving, 
Obachickquid 

Thought and asked he : — 
*' Hobbamocko 
Evil whispered; 
Then she left me. 
Who the lover? 
Long he shall sleep 
On my wolf-robe! " 

Brushed the grief-dews 
From his forehead ; 
Bow and quiver, 
Axe and knife took. 
Through the woods went 
Swift as an tiered — 
Obachickquid. 

Out the moon went; 
Far the wolf slept ; 
Soft the brooks ran ; 
Low a fire glowed — 
Peering, crouching, 
Creeping, stealthy, 
Obachickquid. 



16 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN SHAW 



By the fagots 
Indian sitting; 
From a bough hut, 
Sobbing, wailing. 
Broke the bow-string, 
Obachiekquid ! 
Gone was Uncas. 

Then the thongs cut, 
Lulu kissed he ; 
Turned his back then. 
Scorned her — left her 
By the fire sat, 
With his head down, 
Obachiekquid. 

Near him Lulu, 
Hair in wild locks, 
Cheeks with tears wet, 
lied her eyes were ; 



Like the birch-tree. 
By the storm shook, 
Trembled deep she. 

Spoke these words then : 
" Bend the lilies 
When the north wind 
Sweeps the vale through ; 
Then to sunshine 
Turn their cups blight; 
Blast has touched not." 

Tender hugged her. 
Gentle spoke he : — 
'• Good was Kitchtan 
To protect you. 
Kiss me, Lulu. 
And forgive me ; 
Wronsr I did you." 



From his wigwam 
Soon the smoke curled. 
Bright the fire blazed. 
Glad the pot sung; 
In the sunshine 
Spread the wolf-robe 
For his Lulu. 
Obachiekquid. 



' ; TRIUMPH AND FULNESS OF FAME. 

When on a visit to Lowell early in 1876 he hap- 
pened to meet his friend, Earl Amri Thissell. who had 
known him for years, and had always regarded the 
invention of the stocking and loom already referred to 
as a long step in the right direction. He told Mr. 
Thissell the melancholy circumstances to which he had 
been rednced; how he had been prevented from going 
on with the stocking and loom; that he had exhausted 
his means when he laid them aside, and that it had 



AN OUTLINE. 17 



cost all he had earned in one way and another since then 
to support his family. And he said, with visible emotion, 
"If I have any future, it is in that loom." 

Mr. Thissell was not a rich man, but he had confi- 
dence in the ability of my father to develop these inven- 
tions, and in the outcome of their development, and 
offered him pecuniary assistance for an interest in them. 
This offer was gratefully accepted, and the work to which 
he had been hoping for years to be able to devote himself 
was begun at once. 

I remember how his looks brightened the moment it 
occurred to him how he could perfect these inventions, so 
that the stocking would be faultless in shape and the 
loom capable of so producing it automatically. He had 
been sitting in a brown study in his parlor at Cambridge, 
when he suddenly raised his head, and, looking at me, 
exclaimed, " I have found out how to do it." The day on 
which this occurred was, I believe, one of the happiest 
days of his life. 

Another loom, embodying the principles of the 
earlier one, and so ingenious as to seem " almost imbued 
with human intelligence," was constructed, and on it, in 
the summer of 1877, was produced what has since been 
known as the Shawknit Stocking, differing from the 
earlier one in having gussets in its heel and instep. This 
stocking, which was patented to him February 12, 1878, 
satisfied his ambition, which was to make the best-fitting 
stocking art could produce. 

The loom, famous as the first Jacquard circular knit- 
ting machine, and the first machine to produce what is 
now commonly known as "the seamless stocking," and 
the first, and as yet the only, machine to produce a stock- 
ing having the structural features of the Shawknit, has 
been so often and so well described in public print as to 



18 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN SHAW; 

make even a partial description of its mode of operation 
seem almost supererogatory. After the ribbed top has 
been transferred to it, it knits the rest of a sock in 
the incredibly brief space of four and a half minutes. 
Having knit the leg, it changes automatically from circular 
to reciprocating motion, slows itself down to half-speed, 
introduces a splicing- thread, fashions the heel, cuts off the 
splicing-thread when it is no longer wanted, changes again 
to circular motion, resumes its original speed, and knits 
the foot It then changes again to the back and fro 
motion, and fashions the toe, and then stops itself for the 
operator to transfer to it a new top and start it again. 
All that remains to be done to the stocking, by hand, is 
the closing of the hole at the toe and the taking of a few 
stitches at each side of the heel. From the time the 
ribbed top is put on until the toe is finished the loom is 
entirely automatic, and, with the exception of the needles 
and cylinder, it has little in common with other knitting- 
machines. 

The stocking and loom perfected, it now remained 
for my father and his associate, Mr. Thissell, to interest 
capitalists in these inventions. For some weeks my father 
exhibited the loom in Lowell, where he had now come 
to reside, and in October, 1877, after a hard struggle, the 

SHAW STOCKING COMPANY 

was incorporated, with a capital of $30,000, to build and 
operate the knitting-loom and manufacture the stocking 
invented by him, and he was chosen manager. The rapid 
growth of this industry under his management must be 
indicated in these pages by the simple statement that the 
company had, in 1877, a capital of $30,000, and in 187S 
operated eight looms, employing twenty-four persons, and 
that as early as 1879, and from time to time thereafter. 



AN OUTLINE. 19 



its capital was increased, and new looms and subsidiary 
machinery were added to its equipment, so that for some 
years before 1890, or before his decease, it had a capital 
of $360,000, and operated two hundred and seventy-five 
looms, employing nearly five hundred persons. 

In 1880, a desire to introduce the loom into England 
and Germany having been manifested by hosiery-makers 
in those countries, he visited Europe. He took the loom 
to London, patented it, and sold the right to manufacture 
under it to an English company for $75,000. The loom 
made quite a sensation among the hosiery men of Leices- 
ter, for it had before required four or five different 
processes to complete a stocking; for instance, the ribbed 
top was made on one frame, the leg on another, the heel 
on another, the foot on still another, and each frame had 
to be worked by a different hand, trained to his own 
specialty. 

The advance made by him was declared by an English 
trade journal of high repute, under date of June 24, 
1881, "to be as greatly beyond the general practice in 
hosiery manufacture in our time as that of Lee was in 
his." It will be remembered that Lee was the inventor 
of the first stocking-frame. 

In "Lowell Illustrated," an interesting volume by 
Frank P. Hill, librarian, published in 1884, the story of 
the exhibition of the loom at the Palace of Westminster, 
is felicitously told: 

The English patent law is so framed as to allow a person to 
secure letters-patent on an invention of which he has merely heard, 
provided that within six months he file a complete description of 
the same. A pirac} r of the sort permitted by this peculiarity of the 
law was attempted in the case of Mr. Shaw's stocking-loom, and 
the hold which the "voyager" got upon the invention, through a 



20 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN SHAW : 



visit to the rooms on Broadway, and otherwise, was the thing the 
inventor was obliged to throw off before the loom could be offered 
in the foreign market. 

It was during the legal contest which was waged over this 
pirac} 7 that the Lord Chancellor consented to the exhibition of the 
loom in his chambers at the Palace of Westminster, in order to 
compare it with the odds and ends and unorganized parts and 
devices which the opposing part}' had put in to illustrate the 
progress of the "invention" with him. It is to be presumed 
that His Lordship was misled by the small size and few parts put 
in by the adversary, as to the weight and proportions of the Shaw 
loom, and no opportunity was allowed him to make any discovery 
in that direction until he should be confronted with the machine 
in his own elegant apartments. The loom weighed about eight 
hundred pounds and occupied a floor space of two and one-half by 
five feet, and stood five and one-half feet high. The day and hour 
appointed found Mr. Shaw, with a large gang of English laborers, 
who exhaled the odors of the indispensable beverage, laboriously, 
yet tenderl}', getting the loom up the '* Peers' Staircase." This 
and the wainscoting were in the highest polish of white and colored 
marbles, and were such stairs as, leading to the hall of the House 
of Lords and to the offices of the highest law officers of the crown, 
one treads in stillness and with bare and reverent head. His 
Lordship had just passed along the corridor above, clad in his 
official wig and robes, and preceded by the officer who bears the 
mace and cries, ''Make way for the Lord Chancellor." when a 
messenger to learn the whereabouts of the machine appeared at the 
head of the staircase. Some confusion arising, the attention of 
the chamberlain was attracted to the spot. He came in the uniform 
of his office, and what was his horror the ruddy English counte- 
nance tried but failed to show. " Stop right there ! " he shouted 
44 Go back! Whatever are you about? You will spoil the whole 
building! Who are you? Whatever are you a-doing on down 
there? Oh, my!" By this time he had got down to the loom, 
in whose august presence he wiped the perspiration from his fore- 
head. "You have chipped the stairs already, and I will have 
you arrested and lodged for damages." The situation was exciting 
and amusing. It was hard to reconcile the faithful chamberlain to 
the presence of the portentous machine. Let it go an inch farther 
he would not. He " cared nothing whatever for the Lord Chancel- 



AN OUTLINE. 21 



lor. The Lord Chancellor never intended it. He can come 'ere, 
but the machine mustn't go there." And there, half way up the 
" Peers' Staircase," it stood, until His Lordship and all the learned 
advocates and solicitors, in gowns and wigs, got ready to come 
down to see it. And there Mr. Shaw exhibited and explained it, 
himself, in true American fashion, turning the pulley. His exhibi- 
tion lasted about half an hour, and many a playful remark was 
made by the gowns and wigs, and smiled at by the Lord Chancellor, 
about Yankee ingenuity, ascending to lightning and descending to 
stockings, etc., during this brief but important interval. The 
chamberlain, however, did not smile. He made wrinkles on his 
brow, and an assurance by the inventor that if the Parliament 
Houses were ruined he would send over new ones from America, 
having failed to pacify him, a dinner, not omitting what are known 
on the other side as "good things," was tried, and with the 
happiest results. 

His success in England made more interesting the 
industry at Lowell, which became the subject of much 
gratifying newspaper comment, and a long notice in one 
of the Boston papers, January 17, 1885, began with 
these w T ords: 

The honor of being in the lead in the manufacture of superior 
hosiery certainly belongs to Massachusetts, and to Lowell in par- 
ticular. Time was when Nottingham, Leicester, and other manu- 
facturing centres in England, which had been for centuries engaged 
in making hosiery for the world, held the palm for superiority, but 
even Leicester has had to bow to Lowell in Massachusetts. This 
is to be attributed to the invention of the ingenious Shawknit 
stocking loom by Mr. Benjamin F. Shaw, of Lowell, a machine 
that has effected a thorough revolution in stocking knitting. When 
Mr. Shaw had perfected his machine in 1877, the work of con- 
structing and operating it was undertaken by a company of capi- 
talists, and the first machine unveiled to the public was exhibited at 
the fair of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanics' Association in 
Boston in the autumn of 1878. Here it attracted much attention 
from both domestic and foreign manufacturers, and there were not 
wanting those who predicted that the machine would prove a 
failure ; still, even those wedded to old-fashioned operations, either 



22 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN SHAW ; 

by necessity or desire, saw more excellence in Mr. Shaw's invention 
than they were willing to admit. It may not be amiss to add, as 
illustrating the doubts with which this invention was received, that 
while the committee of the Mechanics' Charitable Association in 
1878 awarded the Shaw Stocking Company a gold medal, the board 
of management of that association did not think the exhibitors of 
sufficient importance to be entitled to an invitation to the banquet 
which was tendered to the " principal exhibitors." Within two 
years after that, people from all parts of Europe were coming to 
see the loom, and riots were threatened in Leicester if the loom 
should be shown there. 

How active he was during the years that he was 
manager of the Shaw Stocking Company ! — doing work 
enough for the company, himself, and others to exhaust 
many ordinary men, if any number of such men could have 
done it at all. He was talented and had educated himself 
in the truest sense of the word. He had' filled his mind 
with useful knowledge, and had developed by exercise its 
highest faculties. The Rev. Dr. Hervey, president of the 
College of Letters and Science, St. Lawrence University, 
who had known him for twenty-five years, said, in the 
address at his funeral, that he had " never seen a man so 
well informed that was not thoroughly educated in the 
schools." He was a clear and comprehensive thinker, a 
ready and able writer, and did the various w T ork of these 
years easily — at least with no apparent effort. He was 
aided in some of it by the readiness with which he 
grasped legal principles, for he had much to do in the 
courts for the protection of his inventions. 

I cannot, in these pages, review all that he did, 
during this busy period, that was indicative of the man- 
ner of man he was. His contributions to the Lowell 
papers (1883-1885) having reference to the Triple Ther- 
mic Motor, in which his detestation of fraud in whatever 
guise perhaps found its fullest and most forcible expression, 



AN OUTLINE. 23 



have not yet been forgotten. It is believed they were the 
direct means of saving many a person from the loss of his 
little accumulation of hard earnings. They were scien- 
tific, sarcastic, and ludicrous, and one of them, entitled 
" The Hodjum, Codjum, and Dodjum Company," an amus- 
ing allegory in which the intelligent reader found much 
between the lines, was recently published in the Lowell 
Morning Mail at the suggestion of a clergyman, who 
called it "the most prophetic utterance he ever read, as 
interpreted in the light of subsequent events." 

He was a firm believer in a protective tariff, and 
was active in the defeat of the Mills bill, which he 
opposed with all the persistence of his indomitable 
nature. His luminous letters to the press against this 
measure, some of which were controversial, were widely 
copied and as widely commented upon, and he became 
known throughout the country, not only as a believer in 
the preservation of the American market for the Ameri- 
can manufacturer, and in the identity of interest between 
the employer and the employed in the economic question 
under discussion, but as one that had " carefully mastered 
the principles of political economy." His letter to the 
Honorable B,. Q. Mills, chairman of the congressional 
Committee on Ways and Means, dated April 3, 1888, 
which he caused to be published, and which the Boston 
Journal pronounced " an unanswerable refutation of the 
idea of the free traders," became a campaign document. 
Unable to refute his arguments, the editors of free trade 
papers generally threw stones. One of them said: "It 
is the continued plethoric condition of his pocket-book 
that he has in view, in laboring for the maintenance of 
the tariff which enhances the price of his goods, and not 
the material interests of his employes in the least." . But 
what did he say in the closing paragraphs of one of his 



24 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN SHAW ; 

letters, which was indicative of the interest he felt in 
our wage-earners] He said this: "This economic ques- 
tion is one affecting every person living in this country, 
and this thought occurred to me when I read a paragraph 
in a former issue, in w T hich you said that ' all persons 
interested in the tariff' should read an article that I had 
sent you. 'Why,' said I, 'who is not interested in the 
settlement of a question that has arisen, whose settlement 
involves either the prosperity or the ruin of all but the 
rich who live by grinding down the masses?' They talk 
about contributing to the wealth of the capitalists and 
corporations, and they say that all sorts of manufactured 
goods should be admitted free. They ignore the fact that 
all the money that goes abroad for imported goods, goes 
to capitalists, who for generations have inherited wealth, 
and who exercise arbitrary, irresponsible control over the 
lives of thousands of poor and dependent people, who 
are born upon their soil, and kept in such a condition of 
servitude and poverty as prevents them from ever leaving 
it. There is nothing more repugnant to humanity than 
the condition of life in which the manufacturing operatives 
abroad are kept. And yet, for the support of those 
foreigners who have inherited their factories, and for the 
support of that system of servitude which has resulted 
in the moral degradation, physical deformity, poverty and 
ignorance of the thousands of operatives in England and 
in Germany, they advocate the stopping of the mills in 
this country, and the sending abroad of our money ! 

" The question, then, is really this : ' Shall we con- 
tribute to the support of our own working people or to 
the maintenance of the inherited, despotic, and inhuman 
capitalists abroad]' A vote for free trade is a vote to 
enrich those who profit by the helplessness of the worthy 



AN OUTLINE. 25 



workers in Germany, England, and France, where it is 
considered ' a crime to be born poor.' " 

The Mills bill was defeated; the McKinley bill, in 
some of the details of which he had a hand, was passed ; 
American manufacturers were given protection, and the 
Home Market Club passed these resolutions on his death : 

Resolved, That by the death of Mr. Benjamin Franklin Shaw, 
which occurred at his residence in Lowell, December 11, 1890, the 
Home Market Club lost one of its most esteemed officials. He 
was a public benefactor, not only as an inventor and the founder 
and manager of a successful business, but as an intelligent and 
influential advocate of sound national policy. The work of such a 
man survives him. Esteemed in life, he has been more truly 
revealed by death, so it may be said of our appreciation, not less 
than of the grief of near friends, that 

"•Time but th' impression deeper makes 
As streams their channels deeper wear." 

He undertook during these years to bring about a 
better system of patent laws, and, during the interval 
between 1884 and 1889, invented the Shaw-woven loom 
and stocking, which were fairly well described in the Loivell 
Vox Populi of April 27, 1889, and elicited the following 
open letter from a well-known mechanical expert : 

Editor Vox Populi : — The exhibition . . 
of some stockings from a new circular automatic knitting-loom, 
invented by Benjamin F. Shaw, of the Shaw Stocking Company, of 
this city, deserves a more extended notice than was given it in a 
former issue of your paper. There is nothing wonderful in a 
striped stocking as such ; but there is a great deal that is wonderful 
in a seamless stocking, having a plain sole and a striped upper, or 
vice versa, with a series of in-woven figures resembling embroidery 
running along the sides, 'when that stocking is the product of a 
single circular machine, which is automatic in all its movements, 
and which requires onlj' to be supplied with yarn and connected 
with power to turn it out. Mr. Shaw has invented a wonderful 
machine, a machine which will be conspicuous among the marvelous 



26 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN SHAW ; 



inventions of this age of mechanical progress. Such a machine is 
not the product of mere ingenuity, but of inventive genius — of 
ideality, or the creative facult} T . Mr. Shaw may be associated with 
such inventors as Lee and Jacquard, men who were really inspired 
for the performance of their work. The improvements he has 
made in knitting machinery are not limited to simple modifications 
of long-used parts. He has conceived new articles of dress of 
complex structure, and created new organisms with which to con- 
struct them. He has covered very broad ground. His breadth is 
like that of the musician who, beyond writing a mere tune, com- 
poses a symphony. Our citizens, from living at the scene of this 
achievement, will be unable to form a just estimate of its import- 
ance. Whose next-door neighbor ever does anything of any great 
account? Seen from a distance, whence this invention may be 
viewed without envy, in its relation to the history and state of the 
art, the work of Mr. Shaw will appear like a mountain in a hilly 
plain. Wonder and admiration on the part of foreign manu- 
facturers may be predicted when this loom shall come to their 
knowledge. Ira Leonard. 

Lowell, April 22, 1889. 

These inventions were not patented until after his 
decease, nor was the stocking marketed until then. And 
during these years he gave some time and much thought 
to the development of his beautiful summer retreat, 
Ossipee Mt. Park, of which more will be said. 

Though so busy, he found time to interest himself in 
the welfare of his employes, so that the most pleasant and 
cordial relations existed between him and them. Having 
regard for their health, their morals, and their general 
prosperity, he treated them more like a parent than an 
employer, and he said at one of a series of literary and 
musical entertainments which were given them at his sug- 
gestion that " the employers and employes of the company 
are all brothers and sisters, members of one family, so far 
as the relationship of brothers and sisters can exist among 
people not born in the same family." 



AN OUTLINE. 27 



It was his wish to make the conditions of work the 
best that are possible, and these entertainments, by which 
his employes were not only diverted, but assured that an 
interest was felt in them beyond what is merely of a 
monetary nature, were a means to this end, and as such 
were widely commented upon by the press. They were 
delightful occasions, and a newspaper report of one of 
them ran in part as follows : 

Shortly before eight o'clock the pink-tinted electric lights in 
Huntington Hall, the largest assembly room in Lowell, shone down 
on an animated scene, which resembled nothing so much as the 
closing exercises in a female college, for a large majority of the 
four or five hundred employes are young women. The floor was 
handsomely decorated with blossoming flowers in pots and tropical 
plants, while the employes were each provided with a floral favor. 
The boxes adjoining the stage were occupied by members of the 
corporation and their families, while the galleries were devoted to 
their guests. At the opening hour a grand promenade was 
indulged in by the employes, in which Mr. and Mrs. Shaw joined. 
The appearance of these hundreds of employes promenading in the 
brilliantl}- lighted hall in silks and satins and muslins made in the 
latest fashions, their faces aglow with pleasurable excitement, was 
one that might well cause a feeling of pride in the breast of an 
American who takes the least interest in the progress of his 
country. 

Considerate, generous, and sympathetic in his treat- 
ment of his employes, it is no wonder that they esteemed 
him; no wonder that they placed on his casket a floral 
tribute bearing this inscription : 

IN MEMORIAM. 

BENJAMIN F. SHAW. 
A Beloved Employer, 

And turned away from his blanched face with heavy 
hearts and tearful eyes. 



28 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN SHAW ; 

His interest in the two orphans, Mamie and Lizzie 
Cole, children of the noble Boatswain Jack Cole, who 
died in the Washington Naval Hospital from the effects 
of exposure in the Arctic expedition of the ill-fated 
Jeannette, was an illustration of his benevolence. He 
had read of the nearly destitute condition in which they 
were living in Brooklyn, in a notice in the New York 
World, and sent them money as a gift, and offered them 
employment. They came to Lowell, and he cared for 
them with all the tenderness of a parent. He gave them 
work, acquainted the public with the details of their sad 
experience, raised money for them, and aided them in 
undertaking to secure from the national government 
funds that were due to them. He took them in summer 
to his home at the mountains, where they enjoyed long 
sojourns; and he was as glad to see them grow rugged 
and rosy-cheeked in the mountain air as if they had been 
children of his own. There were no sincerer mourners 
at his funeral than they, who had said in the hushed 
stillness of his house on the day of his death that "he 
had been as a father to them both." The public knew 
but little of his many acts of kindness and charity. He 
sought no reward but the satisfaction of his own con- 
science in doing good for others. 

" Into your heavenly loneliness 

Ye welcomed me, O solemn peaks ! 
And me in every guest j^ou bless 

Who reverently your mystery seeks." 

In the summer of 1879 my father passed some days 
with his wife and daughters at a farm-house in Tuftonbor- 
ough, New Hampshire, and at the suggestion of his host, 
who led the way, visited the famous Ossipee Falls, in 
Moultonborough, New Hampshire, now quite as well 
known by the name of "Falls of Song," and clambered 



AN OUTLINE. 29 



from them through the tangled woods to a quaint, weather- 
beaten cottage, from which he looked far down on the 
peaceful valley and waters of Winnipesaukee. His delight 
in the Falls and the prospect was greater than his com- 
panion had thought it would be, who had not learned with 
what a loving eye, with what poetic sentiment, he viewed 
the beauties of nature. That this delight was not simu- 
lated in the least, his companion saw not long after. 

In the course of a few weeks he visited the Falls 
again, traced the brook of which they are a part to its 
source, viewed the lake again from the cottage, and in the 
autumn of 1879 rejoiced to say that he owned the Falls, 
much of the brook, and the site of the cottage, having 
bought nearly five hundred acres containing them.* In 
the purchase of this land he came into possession of a 
natural park, which he called Ossipee Mt. Park, and made 
his summer home, and which he so well developed, and 
so generously permitted many others to enjoy, that it has 
been called "a monument to his good taste and public 
spirit." 

It is not my purpose to describe it in these pages; 
but I cannot resist the temptation to present in this con- 
nection a portion of an open letter by Professor Fay of 
Tufts College, who called the park " a New England para- 
dise," and said "we insist again that the half-recognized 
presence of a presiding genius is essential to any real 
paradise. Here it has done much to render all the charms 
of this rare spot accessible, and to develop new beauties. 



*The farmers of whom this land was bought had been, with respect to the charms of 
their locality, like the brown bear of Whittier, "blind and dull." Tliey were surprised at 
the sudden demand for the acres they owned, and felt that the opportunity of their lives 
had come. One of them, as soon as he had disposed of his farm, bought a new suit of 
clothes, a new hat, and a very elaborate watch-chain, which most people said was either 
gold or brass, and promised himself a period of long-needed rest; and this promise was 
fulfilled. 



30 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN SHAW ; 

With such discretion has this been done, with such art, as 
not merely not to be obtrusive, but often actually to con- 
ceal itself. An opening in the trees beyond the unbroken 
lawn is a hint of where the path begins which leads by 
the easiest or most attractive ways to the rocky 'Knoll,' 
the ledgy 'Steep,' into the depths of the ravine, to the 
foot of the highest waterfall, then back along the match- 
less brook, which you cross by many a rustic bridge. 
Here and there a side path invites you by a shorter cut 
to some one of the principal features of this delightful 
park. As you stray along the path you now and then 
see, at a little distance beyond you, a seat suggesting a 
tarry, but you see no reason why it should be just there. 
You reach it, and sit down half-in voluntarily. Immediately 
you are looking through a vista in the trees upon a bit of 
distant landscape almost too idyllic to be a part of Puritan 
New England. Perhaps a slight turn of the head reveals 
a glimpse through the thinned underbrush of a foaming 
cascade coquetting down the dark, mossy cliff. If it 
would offend you to know that Nature no more prepared 
the vista and carefully pruned away the screening shrub- 
bery than she placed the rustic seat, we will leave you to 
your illusion. Nevertheless, when we meet in the prosy, 
work-a-day world, I know that you will be first to speak 
of the thousands of dollars spent by the owner of this 
domain in making it what it is to-day — a spot unparalleled 
in all New England." 

In March, 1882, the people of Moultonborough, in 
town meeting assembled, named the highest peak of the 
Ossipee Range Mt. Shaw, in his honor, by which name it 
has since been officially known, and on the Fourth of 
July, 1882, to signify his appreciation of the compliment 
they had paid him, he invited them — all the people of 
Moultonborough — to the park, where they were enter- 



AN OUTLINE. 31 



tained with suitable musical aud literary exercises, in 
which the most prominent of them participated. On this 
occasion he read an original poem, which perhaps he would 
not have me mention were he living, but which in many 
of its passages was highly poetical. 

How delightful were the days he passed here, in over- 
seeing the work of cutting a path, building a bridge, or 
opening a vista, or in communing with nature and reaping 

" The harvest of a quiet eye." 

His desire to have his friends enjoy his romantic retreat, 
and the cordiality with which he invited them to it, were 
enough to show that in his heart was the sentiment so 
well expressed by Lucy Larcom in the poem beginning : 

11 ' I said it in the meadow-path. 

I say it on the mountain-stairs : — 
The best things any mortal hath 

Are those which every mortal shares." 

Here he entertained John Greenleaf Whittier, Lucy Lar- 
com, Irene Jerome, and other noted persons whose refine- 
ment of thought and feeling made their presence con- 
genial. Mr. Whittier wrote to him : " Surely there is 
nothing in all New England mountains to compare with 
thy place." 

Ossipee Mt. Park was, indeed, an idyllic home, and 
he hoped to watch at it, in old age, the growing and the 
falling of the leaf; but, alas ! on the 24th day of Novem- 
ber, 1890, he was carried from it in an enfeebled condi- 
tion after a painful sickness of four weeks, which he had 
uncomplainingly endured, to his home in Lowell, where 
he soon suffered a relapse, and on the 11th day of Decem- 
ber, 1890, at the age of 58 years, departed this life. He 
died strong in the faith that the soul is immortal and God 
is good, and his last words, uttered slowly and with diffi- 
culty, were these : — 



32 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN SHAW ; 

"I feel all the solemnity of what is now presented 
to my mind. I have been expecting this, but its sudden- 
ness surprises me." 

His life was in the main a struggle. How well he 
lived it, how useful he made himself, how much he accom- 
plished, how much good he did, these pages but imper- 
fectly show, while they afford hardly more than a glimpse 
of the man himself. 

They fail to do justice to his beloved memory and the 
feelings to which the thought of him gives rise in my 
heart. I do not think of him as an inventor nor as a 
public benefactor, but as the man " so jovial and so full of 
kindness," so nice in his tastes, so simple in his manners, 
so witty, so companionable, and so strong withal that he 
was liked by everybody that came to know him intimately. 
His relish of fun and his ability to make it will never be 
forgotten by those that gathered about his hearth or were 
in friendly correspondence with him. I have seen many 
laugh at his witty and humorous speeches, his comical 
looks and actions, till they could laugh no longer from 
sheer exhaustion. 

He was one of the best entertainers, and there is a 
passage in a description of Thackeray that applies so well 
to him that I am going to avail myself of it: When one 
was " taken into his confidence, no friend could be more 
jovial or unrestrained than he was. The simplicity of the 
man was one of his greatest charms. He could not 
endure affectations and mannerisms. He talked without 
effort, without hesitation, and without any of the elabo- 
rateness which comes of egotistic cogitation and the desire 
to present oneself in the most favorable light. He was 
one of the most ' natural ' of men, if the word is taken as 
meaning the absence of self-disguise." An editor who 
had enjoyed his hospitality at his mountain home only a 



AN OUTLINE. 33 



few weeks before he died, impressed by the heartiness of 
his manners and the interest he gave to conversation, said 
in a tribute to his memory: "Hearty, sturdy, with a 
grasp that told of strength and a face that beamed with 
health, my host bade me farewell and come again. I 
cannot say I ever met a host so genial, and I rejoiced in 
the opportunity my visit afforded me to see the senti- 
mental side of a man whose life was spent in practical 
pursuits. I found a mind well stored with literary infor- 
mation, a mind which cherished intimate communion with 
the poets, and a nature that found Nature something- 
more than sublime. Up among the peaks of his moun- 
tain home he found his most perfect content, and every 
hour brought him fresh delights in new revelations and 
ever-changing phases." 

He went abroad on business ; but he travelled there 
with the curiosity, discernment, and feeling of a poet and 
artist. This is shown by his letters to members of his 
family, giving his impressions of what he saw that was 
picturesque or had literary or historical interest. These 
letters are so characteristic, as well as delightful, that I 
wish I could include them in these pages. 

It has been truly said, in the tributes to his memory, 
that "he was one of the best types of New England 
cultivation ; " that " he was a hale, hearty, and vigorous 
man, a warm and generous friend;" that "he had a 
spirit of wit, a hopeful and joyful spirit, liked the sunny 
side of life, and occasioned vivacity in those about him ; " 
that "he was a man of positive convictions, as all great 
men are;" and "had no sympathy with anything unfair, 
unjust, or mean;" that "he was a man of extraordinary 
resources and indomitable courage;" that "he was a 
public-spirited man, and one that kept himself constantly 
informed of what was going on in the world;" that "he 



34 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN SHAW. 

was not only an extensive reader, bnt an intelligent one," 
and that "whenever any opinion was expressed contrary 
to his conviction or knowledge of the facts, his ready pen 
was brought into requisition to refute the statement;" 
that "he was emphatically a man of enterprise and push," 
and that " eminently a self-made man, winning his way 
to material prosperity by the exercise of his natural 
genius, he knew how to appreciate all that he had won, 
and was never so happy as when he made those happy 
around him." 

And it is gratifying to me to know that his good 
"name will have place among the inventors who have 
done so much to adorn the annals of a generation with 
their bloodless achievements in the fields of science and 
mechanical research." 

I loved him and was justly proud of him. I can 
hardly realize that he is not living, and find myself at 
times waiting 

" For the touch of a vanished hand, 
And the sound of a voice that is still." 

He was laid at rest in the Lowell Cemeterv. 



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